Impulses

Many branches of industry with which EOS is working with, are moving in a challenging market environment, reflecting a lot of megatrends, including: the force of cost reduction and the increase in productivity; an accelerating individualized mass production and also with it a increasing variation diversity, which forces a company to operate more flexible in their production; faster time-to-market cycles; and the constant pressure, to differentiate itself from competitors. And finally, not to lose sight of the basic target – the growth in sales.

Already today, EOS addresses in current ventures the considerable challenges of the different branches of industry. This is impressively shown by the close collaboration with customers from varying domains: medical technology (e.g. disposable surgery attendance, dental caps, material- and process qualification), aerospace (feasibility studies e.g. in the range of turbines or parts for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), etc.), consumer goods (e.g. solutions for the sections lifestyle, fashion, architecture models, shoe industry, web-applications), engineering and automotive section (lightweight design parts with complex structures in plastic or metal), tooling (inserts with optimized conformal cooling channels) and Micro Laser-Sintering (micro parts, e.g. probes for semi-conductor, fuel cells, micro turbines, minimal-invasive surgery).

At this stage, these examples show that e-Manufacturing from EOS can revolutionize markets and industries and also will do this in the future. However, this requires the solution of some challenges: it is necessary to increase the willingness to change from traditional manufacturing methods through to laser-sintering; to improve steadily the stability and quality of the manufacturing process and the repeatability of the components and complete the productivity of the laser-sintering even further. Finally, the integration of upstream and downstream process steps enable to offer a complete process chain (e.g. in the field of design: Lattice structures, for example for lightweight design, in cooperation with the company Within, or the down-streamed polishing process in cooperation with BESTinCLASS). The integration of laser-sintering in the production environment is also guaranteed by a close cooperation with OEM's and e-manufacturing Centers of Excellence.

The target is, to develop industry-specific e-Manufacturing solutions, together with industry-leading flagship customers. This includes the qualification of the laser-sintering process at the customer, the customized development and adaptation of material, processes and parameters, the certification of material and material tests as well as the assembly and the development of specific and continuous e-Manufacturing process chains. Derived from this, industry-specific standardization will be introduced and together with e-Manufacturing service providers the roll-out of the solutions to other customers will be ensured. EOS cannot do this alone, but banks on close cooperation with an experienced industry specific network.